John Lee wrote:
The sentiment is dittoed here. I don't have a clue what all this hoo-ha is about, but that fact alone seems to suggest that something clandestine occurred.
Whatever may have happened here, it is not right to say that anything "clandestine" occurred. There was a large public discussion right here on this list, and the decision which was taken was carefully crafted (I thought) to carefully take into account each of the major concerns that were raised, including most specifically Mav's.
There are two separate issues here, I suppose. First, there's the specific "content" question of the appropriate answer to the wikispecies issue. I think it fairly clear that the correct decision was made _from the point of view of maximal accomodation to the community_. Mav's perspective has been accomodated to the maximal extent possible, and there is sufficient flexibility moving forward that Mav's input would be valuable in avoiding some of the bad consequences that he fears.
The second issue here has to do with how the decision was made, and clearly if Mav is upset, and if other people take mav's upset to be valid out of respect for him, then the decision should have been reached in a slightly different way. In particular, I should have reached out to mav privately to gain his support for the compromise proposal, and he should have been notified in advance and given an opportunity to give specific feedback.
What can't happen, because it makes everything impossible, is that a single person who is clearly out of step with the consensus of the community simply digs in his heels and stops forward progress.
--Jimbo